Parallel Lives

by John Tagholm, Tagholm

When psychotherapist Marjorie Nielson unexpectedly dies, she leaves behind not only the intimate details of her clients’ lives, nestling cheek by jowl in the cabinet in her office, but also the mystery of her own life and death.
Her funeral brings together three of her clients, unknown to one another but united by the indignation of suddenly being deserted and by the shock of realising how little they knew about the woman who shared their intimate secrets.
Toby Browning, Perdita Landberg and Peter Harrington, their days darkened in different ways by forces they could not understand.
In the quest to find out about his lost therapist, Toby Browning is forced to confront his own past and to discover the shocking truth about Marjorie Nielson. Along the way he is compelled to embrace, for the first time, the lives of others. What is it that Toby cannot face, that so disables Major Harrington and causes Perdita Landberg to doubt herself so much?
And who, or what, killed Marjorie Nielson?
The events that lie inside each of these people, unconsciously corroding them, are eventually brought to the surface. And the mystery of Marjorie Nielson, catalyst to their souls, is finally uncovered as her clients become detectives to her history and their own demons.

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Insidebooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thriller in the sense that it starts with a body being discovered and somewhat towards the end the reason for the death is revealed.

But aside from those points of crime novel construction this book moves away from the medium and is much more of a study of human beings and the way that therapy offers some people hope of finding an answer to their problems.

But once the therpaiset Majorie Nielson has been removed, abruptly in this case because it is her body being discovered that opens the book, those that depended on her for answers have to look into themselves for answers.

Not only do they have to look into themselves but for three of them, the main characters of the book, they look to each other and find that sharing their problems, fears and anxieties with others can bring some sort of resolution.

Tagholm writes character well and in this small cast you start to connect and care about the love story between Toby and Perdita. You want them to come through their darkness into the light.

Worrying about how and who might have killed Marjorie is part of answering the problems for the other remaining patient in the trio Peter Harrington. He works out what secrets he shares with the therapist and why she had to face the end she did.

But by then the focus is on happy endings and unlike most crime novels the sense of solving the crime comes almost as an after thought to the reader who has been focused elsewhere.

It's only after reading and thinking about it you realise how the death of the therapist is the crux of the whole book and even the reaction to the truth of her demise at the end is part of showing how her patients have moved on a developed in her absence.